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Taibei -

John DeFrancis, the author of such important works as The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy and
Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems, has just published a new article: The
Prospects for Chinese Writing Reform.

Those with fast Internet connections may wish to view the PDF version (2.4 MB) instead.

This is the first Web-only release from Sino-Platonic Papers.

I encourage everyone to read this.



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self-taught-mba -

Wonderful!!!

One of my favorite authors, along with David Moser (of course).

One of the things that I have brought attention to those Chinese that say I HAVE to learn
characters, but whom also love Mao.
Mao said and the article quotes:
Mao told the American journalist Edgar Snow:
In order to hasten the liquidation of illiteracy here we have begun
experimenting with Hsin Wen Tzu—Latinized Chinese. It is now used in
our Party school, in the Red Academy, in the Red Army, and in a special
section of the Red China Daily News. We believe Latinization is a good
instrument with which to overcome illiteracy. Chinese characters are so
difficult to learn that even the best system of rudimentary characters, or
simplified teaching, does not equip the people with a really rich and
efficient vocabulary. Sooner or later, we believe, we will have to abandon
characters altogether if we are to create a new social culture in which the
masses fully participate










Craig -

An interesting read i always enjoy DeFrancis's works. The part on use of mobile phones i found
amusing though it seemed almost as if he was told about how most Chinese use SMSs but had not used
the system himself for any extended period of time. I am curious to see if any of his predictions
will come true in the near future. Although it would be a same to see the oldest used writing
system be phased out in our lifetime.










self-taught-mba -



Quote:

Although it would be a shame to see the oldest used writing system be phased out in our lifetime.

I agree. I am not for character abolishment--just easing up a bit when first teaching people (as
the article talks about).










wushijiao -

Thanks for the link Taibei. Very interesting.

I especially like the idea that it may be better to teach kids how to read and write in pinyin and
then fade in characters over time. This way, they can express their ideas and feelings in writing
at the same level of competence as they can express their ideas and feelings in speaking.

Nonetheless, I draw the opposite conclusions from De Francis. Because of high-tech gadgets, it’s
never been easier to “write” characters! As the price of technology decreases and as the
average person gets richer, I could foresee the day in which little kids all have personal
computers at school, and could type essays and report using pinyin. In that way, a 7-year-old
might be able to write at a level that a 9-year-old could in the old days.

De Francis shows that typing in pinyin is becoming tremendously widespread. I agree. But I don’t
think that it necessarily follows that there will be books written in pinyin, and then a general
shift towards pinyinization. I think the opposite is true. A farmer who had only a few years of
schooling couldn’t really write 20 years ago. Today, he/she can, using cell phones or computers.
Personally, I don’t think the process of recognizing characters is all that hard, especially for
people who have lived in China for a few years (i.e. Chinese people).

The biggest threat to all languages worldwide is vulgarization and a general “dumbing down”.
30 years ago, almost everything you could read on paper was first proofread by a person who would
check for grammar and punctuation mistakes, and would generally improve the text. Now, due to the
internet, anyone (like us ) can write and publish our thoughts for the masses to see. The result
is that bad habits have become the norm, and formal written traditions are on the endangered
species list.

The good news, however, is that everybody can express and share their opinions and thoughts. This
is true for all languages, but especially so for Chinese. The difficulty of writing character by
hand is no longer a barrier. I don’t think there is any contradiction in saying “pinyin
wansui!” “汉字万岁!”










Southernjohn -

I have just skim-read the article so far. I was really impressed with the historical survey.
My one concern is that the author seems to have confused two different Wubi typing methods. The
Wubi he very briefly describes seems to be Wubihua, but then later on he faults Wubi for taking
"months to learn". It seems here he is referring to Wubizixing, which indeed requires more work to
learn the keyboard layout.
Again, I have only skimmed, so perhaps I missed something.










malinuo -

I have to admit I still don't understand how Chinese children learn their characters.

There is a time, when young children have access to texts written in pinyin only or mixed pinyin
and hanzi. But that time seems very limited. Let's say you are 11 years old and want to read Harry
Potter or a Mickey Mouse magazine. As far as I know, there are no editions of these with pinyin?
And surely the book or magazine is full of characters a 11 years old doesn't know? Does that mean
that the 11 years child doesn't read it? Or do they just read the characters they happen to know,
and miss most of the meaning?

A "Latin" child can always read every single word in their books, even though a few ones may have
an unknown meaning. A Japanese child can always get books written with a large portion of hiragana
instead of more difficult kanji. But how does the Chinese child do it?










gato -



Quote:

And surely the book or magazine is full of characters a 11 years old doesn't know? Does that mean
that the 11 years child doesn't read it? Or do they just read the characters they happen to know,
and miss most of the meaning?

I looked into a related question before and found that a mainland student is expected to recognize
1600-1800 characters by the end of second grade and 2500 characters by the end of fourth grade
nowadays. With 1600 characters and a larger oral vocabularly (which Chinese kids have but foreign
learners don't), that second grader can start to read newspapers. With 2500 characters, the fourth
grader would be able to read the average mass newspaper and some simpler books.
http://www. /showth...8810#post68810

I went to elementary school in Shanghai and remember reading a newspaper and a magazine designed
for young people by the time I was in second or third grade. I could read 新民晚报, the local
daily, quite comfortably by the time I was in fourth. I think my peers were at about the same
level since my cousin who was a grade behind me could do the same.

So how do Chinese kids learn their characters? Not that differently from foreign learners: A lot
of dictionary work, copying characters to learn how to write, being surrounded by Chinese texts
24/7, etc. They also can recognize more characters than they can write.

Chinese students start learning classical Chinese in junior high school. I think the mix between
classical and modern Chinese is about 50/50 by high school (in Taiwan, it's even more heavily
classical Chinese). The students would see another jump in the numbers of characters they know
when they start classical Chinese because it uses many characters that are no longer today used in
everyday writing. By the end of high school, Chinese students are expected to know about 6000
characters.










Quest -



Quote:

Let's say you are 11 years old and want to read Harry Potter or a Mickey Mouse magazine. As far as
I know, there are no editions of these with pinyin? And surely the book or magazine is full of
characters a 11 years old doesn't know? Does that mean that the 11 years child doesn't read it? Or
do they just read the characters they happen to know, and miss most of the meaning?

An 11 year old is already in the 5th grade... I think a 5th grader can read and understand all
non-technical non-classical texts. The intense character learning period is really between 1st and
3rd grades.










malinuo -



Quote:

I looked into a related question before and found that a mainland student is expected to recognize
1600-1800 characters by the end of second grade and 2500 characters by the end of fourth grade
nowadays.

Those numbers would explain it. So the Chinese learn more characters the first two years than
Japanese children learn during their first six years. It is logical that a Chinese school teaches
characters quicker, as characters are more important in Chinese than in Japanese. The only thing
that surprises me, is that the difference in numbers is that big so early on.












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